Tuesday, August 31, 2010

This year's garden has unfortunately been pretty paltry, mainly because of our resident woodchuck who took it upon himself to eat all of our salad greens, squash, beans, and many other things. I'm honestly pretty ticked off at Mr. Woodchuck. I mean, earlier in the year he hung around our yard a lot and we were cool with each other. As soon as we planted our garden and started seeing things come up, we noticed his little bite marks all over everything. He must have been thinking we had planted all those goodies especially for him!

Anyway, returning from my tangent...the only plants that actually did reasonably well this year was our lavender, basil, and sage (I guess Mr. Woodchuck doesn't fancy those delicacies). While I'm disappointed that we didn't have a more abundant garden, I'm happy that at least those three seemed to make it, especially because those were the three I had planted for the specific purpose of incorporating into my candles.

The lavender won't flower too much this year, but I'm expecting them to look nice and full next year:

The sage and basil did exceptionally well and I'm really excited to pick and dry those:

(The sage is to the left and the basil is in the far right corner.)

I'll do another post after I've dried the sage and basil and let you know how it goes, since this will be the first time I'm incorporating dried herbs into my candles.

Did anyone else do a garden this year? Did you have better luck than I did? Also, if anyone has any natural (and humane) tips for keeping away animals, please share!

3 comments:

Awww...that's too bad! I don't think we have wood chucks here in Arizona. I don't even think that I know what that is hahaha. But, your other plants look like they are doing amazingly well. I think I will be planting sage next year. =)

About Me

By day, I’m an Editor at a small publishing company. By night (and weekends, lunch breaks, vacation days, and so on) I’m a good ol’ fashioned candle-maker. I originally decided to start this blog to share my crafting experiences with others and to get the word out about my company, Candles by Nature. While the primary focus of my entries will be on candle-making, I would like to think of this blog as a place where I can discuss *all* things candle-related—which ends up being almost anything, as I’ve found that so many aspects of my life have become intertwined with my candles.